I'm very sorry that it has taken me so long to respond to your question.

Our museum cuts wood type from hard maple. The wood is sealed before itis cut into wood type. We cut wood type on end-grain. After the wood isdried it is sanded to a smooth flat finish on the side that the letterwill be cut from. The next step is to plane the the wood to make ittype high; (.918 inches). The wood is then sealed by spraying it with a50/50 mixture of orange shellac and alcohol. The wood is sprayed onboth sides. After the shellac has dried, it is lightly sanded with 300grit sandpaper on the smooth side, on the side the letter will be cut.This side is then sanded with 0000 steal wool.

The shellack is water based; it is important to keep water away fromwood type. Water can compromise the finish, allowing the ink to beabsorbed by the wood; the result is uneven ink coverage. I hope thisinformation is helpful.

I run the fabrication facility here at the School of Designat the University of Pennsylvania. I have a student doing an independent study in creating wood block type using a laser cutter. We’ve been very successful creating the type digitally and then engraving the wood blocks with the laser, however,the wood seems to absorb the ink, producing a very faint impression.

Might you be able to help us out with this? We are using hard maple. Is wood type typically sealed before use, and if so what is the traditional method? Or is there a different technique that we ought to be aware of?

Sepcial Delivery to: [robinboeun]Love, Groff & Groff

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Cut paper today.Heat flattened the sheets in the photo press.Scanned some favorites from the Rob Roy book photocopies, courtesy of Chris Van Auken from the print shop. I think he will be Broadside 3.Experimented with running spaghetti to create background texture for emilie.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Today I went to Utrecht and selected an Arches Cover Cold Press 280 lb. paper in Natural White. It was sold in 22" x 30" sheets. To make this most economical, while striving to maintain a tabloid-feel page size, I pared the sheets into quarters, keeping the fibrous edges.

So each page of my book will be 11" x 15" - a goodly size, methinks.

In order to prevent another day-long saga in the land of Mineral Spirits, I headed down to the print shop at 10:30 pm on a Sunday night to:[a] Print a quick idea for a funny broadside for the Space 1026 Battle[b] Bust out Broadside One: Handsome Dennis.